Mapping out a future: Elon plots course with new league venture

By Adam Smith / Times-News

Published: Friday, May 24, 2013 at 01:04 AM.

Fifty-six percent of Elon’s Class of 2017, which arrives in August, comes from within CAA territory, in particular the Mid-Atlantic and New England, including 12 percent from Massachusetts alone, home to league member Northeastern and close by to football-only associates Albany, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

Lambert said the CAA matches well with Elon’s alums — about 5,300 live within 50 miles of CAA schools — especially those in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore, markets that encompass spots where member schools such as Hofstra, Drexel, Towson and Delaware are located.

“It’s a concern,” Lambert said of funding the additional expenses, “but it’s one that I’m confident we can meet.

“You can think of it in one sense as athletic travel money, and it is. But it’s also marketing money for the institution in a very real sense. And I think this is a really good way to promote Elon University in its most strategic corridor.”

When Elon joins the CAA next summer — after paying $900,000 in transitional fees for its Southern Conference exit and CAA entrance — that corridor can be divided into two groups of five full-time members, a Northern district from Baltimore up to Boston and a Southern section from Virginia down into the Carolinas.

CAA commissioner Tom Yeager pointed to those regionalized clusters as critical scheduling components that should ease the burden of travel costs and missed class time for Elon and its future league partners.

“I can’t move Philadelphia any closer to Elon,” Yeager said. “But I can guarantee you, across the board, we’re going to be playing the people that are closest to us as many times that make sense.

ELON — As Elon University officially announced Thursday that it will jump from the Southern Conference to the Colonial Athletic Association, a pair of easels flanked the stage that commanded the room’s attention.

The images on display there — 11 states, the breadth of the CAA highlighted from South Carolina to Maine — provided both a handy reference for locating where Elon will fit in its new league and also a central theme pertaining to the move, which takes effect in the 2014-15 academic year.

Yes, Elon clearly must undertake increased travel costs in stepping into a larger league footprint that spans the East Coast.

But the Phoenix believes the benefits of joining the CAA, and leaving behind a degree of uncertainty attached to the depleted Southern Conference, dwarf the concerns of navigating greater distances.

“You have to decide if you’re going to do something with your entity, ‘What’s the investment? Is the investment worth it?’ ” Elon athletics director Dave Blank said. “This decision was well-discussed at every level, and we think this is right thing to do. We’re all in this together to try to make it work.

“We did not look at this as running from something, but moving toward an opportunity. And there’s a big difference there.”

Thirty seconds into his opening address, at a lectern decorated with Elon and CAA emblems, Elon president Leo Lambert dived into some of the details supporting “this investment in marketing and institutional profile.”

Fifty-six percent of Elon’s Class of 2017, which arrives in August, comes from within CAA territory, in particular the Mid-Atlantic and New England, including 12 percent from Massachusetts alone, home to league member Northeastern and close by to football-only associates Albany, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

Lambert said the CAA matches well with Elon’s alums — about 5,300 live within 50 miles of CAA schools — especially those in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore, markets that encompass spots where member schools such as Hofstra, Drexel, Towson and Delaware are located.

“It’s a concern,” Lambert said of funding the additional expenses, “but it’s one that I’m confident we can meet.

“You can think of it in one sense as athletic travel money, and it is. But it’s also marketing money for the institution in a very real sense. And I think this is a really good way to promote Elon University in its most strategic corridor.”

When Elon joins the CAA next summer — after paying $900,000 in transitional fees for its Southern Conference exit and CAA entrance — that corridor can be divided into two groups of five full-time members, a Northern district from Baltimore up to Boston and a Southern section from Virginia down into the Carolinas.

CAA commissioner Tom Yeager pointed to those regionalized clusters as critical scheduling components that should ease the burden of travel costs and missed class time for Elon and its future league partners.

“I can’t move Philadelphia any closer to Elon,” Yeager said. “But I can guarantee you, across the board, we’re going to be playing the people that are closest to us as many times that make sense.

“What we’re trying to do is create kind of a core grouping of schools that have a lot of identification between each other, that make those kinds of travel things easier.”

The CAA’s television deals with NBC Sports Network and Comcast SportsNet figure to be helpful, too, in terms of avenues for exposure that the Southern Conference noticeably has lagged in.

Noel Allen, representing Elon’s board of trustees Thursday, said heightened fundraising will be an important aspect moving forward, given the expansive ground the Phoenix’s teams soon will be covering in the CAA.

“We understand the implications,” Allen said. “We regard it as a very important step in the trajectory of this institution. An opportunity to find an excellent fit with regard to athletic conference, a fit with regard to where our students are coming from now and also where our opportunities lie ahead.”